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Overview

The Old Man and the Sea SparkNotes Literature Guide by Ernest Hemingway Making the reading experience fun!

When a paper is due, and dreaded exams loom, here's the lit-crit help students need to succeed! SparkNotes Literature Guides make studying smarter, better, and faster. They provide chapter-by-chapter analysis; explanations of key themes, motifs, and symbols; a review quiz; and essay topics. Lively and accessible, SparkNotes is perfect for late-night studying and paper writing.

Includes:

An A+ Essay—an actual literary essay written about the Spark-ed book—to show students how a paper should be written.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

The Old Man and the Sea SparkNotes Literature Guide Series) 3 out of 5based on
0 ratings.
13 reviews.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

This was a very helpful breakdown of the major points and themes of The Old Man and the Sea. It's not totally reverant about Hemingway, either.

justin_t

More than 1 year ago

Purchased the digital version of "Old Man and the Sea" with the expectation the PDF file would be sent immediately - if not immediate, then atleast within an hour. However, more than 24 hours after purchase, still have yet to recieve the file.
Has anyone else experienced similiar difficulty?
Contacted B&N customer support and have yet to hear back.

dain98

More than 1 year ago

GREAT BOOK!

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Guest

More than 1 year ago

i think the skin cancer is benevolent because the dark patches around his eyes reduces the glare from the sun on the water, hence his particularly good eyesight. comments?

Guest

More than 1 year ago

The novel ¿The Old Man and the Sea¿ was written by famous author and machismo poster boy Ernest Hemingway. It is a work of fiction that is widely believed to be based on the author¿s fishing experiences with hired hands during his sojourn in pre-Castro Cuba, where he maintained an estate. In particular he claimed to be inspired by one specific news account he wrote for Esquire magazine, about an old man¿s traumatic loss of most of his catch due to sharks. The article, which, contrary to the basic conventions of journalism, neglects to supply the name of the ¿old man¿, sums up most of the events in the book. What a shame Mr. Hemingway wasn¿t satisfied with that account. But no, he had to expand the basic story so that he could dwell in loving detail on the death agonies of various sea creatures, and maunder on about the alleged simplicity of the poverty-stricken old man¿s life. Yes, death is a part of life, and it¿s honest to be aware of how one¿s meat is brought to table. Yes, there is dignity in the struggle that people wage against dire circumstances. But must we be subjected to Mr. Hemingway¿s suspect romanticization of hunting and subsistence level existence? And why is it that so often the dialogue in these sorts of Tarzan-like yarns is so awkward? We understand that the characters are supposed to be speaking in their own language, and that the author is trying to give some sense of that, but the result is characters who come across as being of subnormal intelligence. ¿I go now for the sardines.¿, is a typical example. It is stilted. It is demeaning. Worse, in a desire to maintain uniformity of style, the author continues this way throughout the novel. An English-as-a-second-language student would be faulted for writing the following sentence: ¿He was rowing steadily and it was no effort for him since he kept well within his speed and the surface of the ocean was flat except for the occasional swirls of the current.¿ For those who glory in the suffering of others, the book provides many nuggets, such as this gem, spoken by the fisherman¿s young apprentice, Manolin: ¿I can remember the tail slapping and banging and the thwart breaking and the noise of the clubbing. I can remember you throwing me into the bow where the wet coiled lines were and feeling the whole boat shiver and the noise of you clubbing him like chopping a tree down and the sweet blood smell all over me.¿ Charming. There are many others, for example, ¿Most people are heartless about turtles because a turtle¿s heart will beat for hours after he has been cut up and butchered.¿ Not only did I not need to read that, but I find the statement illogical. Does the author mean that if turtles¿ hearts stopped instantly, humans would care about them? The novel is larded with this kind of philosophical gibberish. For instance, on the first page we find, ¿The brown blotches of the BENEVOLENT skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks...and his hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a FISHLESS desert.¿--my capitals. I mean really, a fishless desert? Would that be anything like a camel-scarce arctic? The style is belaboured and even a bit precious. Finally, the only recommendation I can make about this novel is that it never again be inflicted, as it has been, on the student population. Let those who relish that hideous oxymoron ¿blood sport¿, or who are researching the life of Ernest Hemingway have access to the book. However please spare the rest of us.

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